“I see,” I said.
His tone as he resumed speaking said he doubted it. “My wife is a wonderful woman,” he said. “She’s a gracious hostess, an impeccable housekeeper and a talented cook. But there are two flaws in her character. She is frigid in the bedroom. And she has a terrible temper which expresses itself when her jealousy is aroused. I might add that her jealousy is frequently aroused over trifles. If I glance at another woman, if a lady engages me in conversation at the dinner table, if I even applaud an actress on the stage—such innocent things are enough to send her into a towering rage. Can you imagine what she might do if she knew I visited this establishment tonight? I shudder just to think of it!” The Senator shuddered.
“But why should she find out?” I asked.
“It’s what ya might call a sorta complicated political situation,” Heavenly interjected. There was a certain relish in her tone; she was enjoying the situation. Having to cater to the Johns most of the time, she was getting a kick out of seeing one of them on the spot.
“My wife’s brother is a bachelor,” the Senator said, envy plain in his voice.
“My father was a bachelor,” Heavenly remembered. “But that’s a whole other story.”
“We don’t get along,” the Senator continued.
“There’s a theory that brother-in-law-hood is a state of natural enmity,” I observed.
“It’s not just that. You see, he’s a Black Repub1ican— a disciple of Thaddeus Stevens. On the other hand”-- the Senator drew his fat up to his full jelly-shaking height -- “I am a Johnson Democrat.”
“It happens in the best of families,” I murmured.
“My brother-in-law is downstairs,” the Senator explained. “I came very close to running into him head-on. Only by sacrificing my dignity, grabbing my pants and bolting did I manage to avoid the encounter.”
“You’re afraid your brother-in-law would tell his sister, your wife, of your visit here,” I deduced. “But would he really do that? I mean, after all, there’s a certain code of honor among men which pertains to situations like this.”
Heavenly snorted.
“He’d tell her with the greatest personal relish,” the Senator assured me. “And he’d also inform every scalawag Republican in Washington. Believe me, I know my brother-in-law. He wouldn’t hesitate to use it to destroy me politically.” The Senator turned to Heavenly with some asperity. “What I can’t understand is how this establishment could be so unethical as to admit Black Republicans on the same night that we were having our party!”
“Talk to the Madam. I only work here. But I know what she’d tell ya. We gotta get along with both parties to stay in business. As it is, it’s a pain m the neck having two entrances and two reception rooms so you politicians don’t turn this place into a Senate debate. Usually, we handle it pretty smoothly. It was just an accident tonight that a Republican wandered over to the Democratic side of the house.”
“Well, I’m not budging out of here until I’m, sure he’s gone,” the Senator said firmly.
“Spend the night.” Heavenly shrugged. “I don’t care.” Then, as an afterthought: “You want I should get you a girl to keep you company?”
“No, I’m much too upset to enjoy it. I just want to rest.”
“Then you’ll have to bunk with Steve here. I’ll go downstairs and find myself some company.” Heavenly breezed out of the room.
Tritenesses become tritenesses because they’re frequently so damned true. For instance: Politics do make strange bedfellows. Forced to share the one bed in the room with the obese Senator, I came to appreciate that.
As a bedmate, he was a moon-shoot from my ideal. He snored. He tossed. He hogged the bed. Clinging to the edge he left me, I had difficulty falling asleep.
Part of the reason was a sort of advance sense of guilt for the extremely unethical course I was plotting. The other part was the way my mind jumped around in piecing together the plan.
Of course, it wasn’t really that complex. Actually, it was brutally simple. I was going to blackmail the Senator!
Now, extortion isn’t usually my bag-—particularly sexual blackmail. I mean, as a rule, I’m pretty much a live-and-let-live kind of guy and I don’t go around blowing the whistle on people’s sexual quirks. As a sex investigator, my line of work has made me privy to the secrets of many an illustrious indiscretion. If I’d been by nature a blackmailer, I suppose I could have made a pretty good thing of it lots of times. But I’d never even considered it before tonight.
This was different though. I was going to blackmail the Senator. Not for money. It was his vote that I wanted. His one vote would be enough to remove Johnson from office and with him the major roadblock to civil rights legislation in the 1860s. If the Senator was as afraid of his wife as he said he was, then I just might be able to swing that vote.
Means and ends, ends and means. Machiavelli with a conscience. My mind spinning, I finally drifted off to sleep.
A landslide of fat woke me in the morning. The Senator had waked up stretching. I picked myself up off the floor and confronted him. His lack of consideration had aroused a certain hostility in me and so I didn’t feel so badly about what I was going to do. Besides, when I wake up I always hate everybody until I have a cup of coffee.
“Senator,” I said grumpily, “I think you should change your vote on impeachment. I think you should vote to throw Johnson out.”
“How do we get a cup of coffee around here?” The Senator cascaded to his feet. “What did you say?”
I repeated it.
“Amateurs should stay out of politics,” he decided when he’d heard me out.
“Change your vote, Senator.”
“Why should I?”
I told him.
“That’s blackmail,” he decided.
“Yeah,” I sighed. I couldn’t deny it.
“You’re a blackmailer!”
I hung my head. “Nobody’s perfect.”
“You’re saying that if I don’t change my vote you’ll snitch on me to my Wife. Is that right?”
“Yeah.” .
“You’re a cad, sir!”
“And a bounder,” I granted.
“You are no gentleman! What about the code of honor among men to which you referred last night?”
“I’m no gentleman,” I admitted.
“Did Thaddeus Stevens put you up to this?”
“He has nothing to do with it,” I assured him. “It was my own idea.”
“I can’t change my vote,” he said positively. “It’s bought and paid for. I’m a man of honor. When I’m bought, I stay bought.”
“Commendable,” I told him. “But remember your wife.”
“If I find you anywhere near her, I shall horsewhip you, sir. I am calling your bluff. You wouldn’t dare do what you propose. And this is my final word!” The Senator finished struggling into his clothes and slammed out of the room.
A moment later the door opened again and Heavenly entered. “What’s with the Senator?” she asked. “He almost knocked me off my pins coming out of here. He looked mad as a hungry hornet.”
“I told him I thought it was wrong to vote against impeachment,” I said, half in truth. “What do you think?”
“I’m apolitical.” Heavenly shrugged. “Republicans, Democrats, turn ’em upside down, they’re all ashamed. But never mind that. It’s you I come here to talk about, Steve.”
“My favorite topic.”
“Yeah? Well, what I wanna know is who the hell are you an’ whadda ya doin’ here?”
“That’s kind of a long story.”
“I thought you was put on special for last night, but the Madam never hearda ya. I covered up for ya. I didn’t tell her you was here. She got friends in the police department. She finds out ya snuck in here, she’d turn ya over to them an’ they’d like as not give ya a goin’-over you’d never forget.”